Yep! Not in Iowa! Our balmy temp is somewhere in the single digits as I post this so sad to say we aren’t in Florida anymore, but we had an awesome week in the Florida sun – we didn’t miss the cold at all!
We stayed in Sanibel, FL known for awesome shelling – and we found some great ones!
Kaitlyn’s favorite part of the beach was the sand…this girl LOVES sand. She was covered in it too! Eyebrows, ears, chin, everywhere had a super fine layer of sand! 
Kaitlyn also loved the hammock at the hotel…
Our second stop was Siesta Key – the beaches were covered in the whitest sand, but unfortunately the couple of days we were there the weather got a bit cooler (for Floridians it warranted ski masks and parkas) so we didn’t spend so much time on the beach but did take a great nature boat ride and visited the aquarium!
We visited a little island that you could only get to by boat and then some little rookery islands where herons and other birds were nesting.
At the end of the little boat tour around Sarasota Bay the biologist on board cast a net out to see what we could catch to observe back on the boat….
The fish that were caught in the net went into a tank and the other little critters went into bins with sea water on the boat.
Kaitlyn was braver than the other kids onboard and touched a seahorse, a puffer fish and a live sponge! We also got to see arrow crabs, several kinds of little fish, porcelain crabs, and a couple different sea squirts (not pictured)!
Lion Fish!
Hermit Crab
Cuttlefish
Florida Lobster – No claws, but this thing was at least the size of a basketball!
Atlantic Octopus – a lot smaller than the Pacific Octopus!
I tried to help K, but in the end it was a Daddy Job!
Manatees!
We had a great time and will definitely plan another trip in the future!
1 comment:
Looks like a fun time as a family. Wish we all were there together. K. is getting so much early exposure to animals and sea critters, I would be very surprised if she did not grow up to be a vet or marine biologist!
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